Customer Story: Abstrakt Creative | WorkflowMax

Customer stories is a regular column on the WorkflowMax blog where we talk to our customers, find out more about the amazing work they’re doing and how they use WorkflowMax to facilitate their workflows.

WorkflowMax provides the team at Abstrakt Creative several benefits, including: 

• Centralised planning and workflow management
• Greater transparency over what's happening in the business at any given time
• Increased collaboration over projects 
• Time savings – no duplication or double entry

Today we're talking to Lauren Swarbrick, Account Director at Abstrakt Creative. Welcome Lauren!

Tell us about your company. Who are you, and what do you do?

Lauren: Abstrakt is a leading branding, design and marketing agency based in the heart of Nottingham, England. We create clarity through simplicity and help businesses and brands stay at the top of their game.

What kind of clients do you work with?

Lauren: We work with a wide range of clients, spanning both the private and public sectors, regionally, nationally and internationally. Our portfolio is pretty broad but we proactively seek a client base made up of ambitious, forward thinking businesses that we can work together with to achieve outstanding results.

What challenges were you facing when it came to your workflow?

"Before we worked with WorkflowMax...there was no central resource in terms of planning or workflow management" – Abstrakt Creative

Lauren: Before we worked with WorkflowMax we were using white boards for studio management, old school job bags for job management and hard copy time sheets for budgeting and timing.

Apart from being an environmental nightmare there was no central resource in terms of planning or workflow management and no standardised process to take a job from lead to production to invoice. We needed a cloud based project management solution that would give everyone in the team the ability to take responsibility for and manage their own jobs and tasks whilst also having a good overview of what was happening across the whole business.

What was the most important factor to you when choosing project management software?

"WorkflowMax allows us to customise every project, so although similar they are set up to particularly suit the job and the specific services required"  – Abstrakt Creative

Lauren: Like all design agencies we have multiple projects running concurrently for several different clients at any one time. On top of that each project is made up of a different life cycle depending on the scale and scope. WorkflowMax allows us to customise every project, so although similar they are set up to particularly suit the job and the specific services required.

Apart from WorkflowMax, do you use any other software tools to manage your business?

Lauren: Yes, we use a combination of tools including Xero for accounting, Google Docs for collaboration and Trello and Slack for internal communication.

Walk us through the life of a project at your company, from beginning to end. What are the steps in the process and how do you use WorkflowMax or other software at each step?

Lauren: Although every project is different, our approach and process is always the same. We use WorkflowMax from start to finish, from initial quoting, through to project planning and workflow management to billing and accounting. Every project is different and can last from a matter of days to many months and WorkflowMax supports us at every step.

What kind of reports are you creating with WorkflowMax?

Although we have been using WorkflowMax for a number of years we have only really scratched the surface of the platforms capabilities. Most of our existing reporting is focused around tracking time vs. cost, which gives us valuable information when it comes to scope creep and for future project planning and quoting.

What do you love most about WorkflowMax?

"WorkflowMax is pretty much a one stop shop - having a centralised platform for everything to do with the production process, that anyone can access anytime, anywhere is vital to our business"  – Abstrakt Creative

Lauren: Everyone in the team has full access to all jobs which gives complete flexibility in terms of collaboration and transparency - anyone can pick up any project at any time and have a full picture of stage, status and next steps.

By having all the information in one place it's a seamless process to take every project from start to finish without the need for duplication and double handling.

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If you’re running a company using WorkflowMax and want to talk workflow with us, just send an email to mallika.goel@xero.com and we’ll be in touch!– we’d love to hear from you.